Wellbeing in the Workplace: more than just a buzzword!

By Charlotte Richmond

Recently, we asked the Aiimi team to share what they do outside of work to re-energise. We were inundated with stories of spending time dog walking with the family, taking part in Kitten Yoga (it’s a real thing!), getting back into exercise and cooking with their loved ones. When we do all these things to look after our wellbeing at home and in our personal lives, why don’t we always take the time to improve our wellbeing at work too? In this blog, I want to take a look at some of the things we’re doing at Aiimi to help our wellbeing at work and spark a conversation to find out what else we could do to make wellbeing more than just a buzzword.

Opening up the conversation

Looking after your health and wellbeing is a topic of conversation that is (thankfully) becoming more and more relevant to the workplace. Across the UK campaigns like Time to Change, run by the mental health charity Mind, and the launch of Shout, a 24/7 text service for anyone in crisis supported by The Royal Foundation, are encouraging us to be mindful of the mental wellbeing of ourselves and others.

I’d like to think that at Aiimi, we appreciate there are times when you can’t just leave your problems at the door as you walk into work. That is why we’ve created an environment where it’s okay to be open about your mental wellbeing in the workplace.

Some of our most successful team wellbeing activities are our regular Aiimi Cares lunchtime sessions which aim to get us all thinking and, more importantly, talking about our wellbeing. Recent topics have included phobias, motivation, and the link between physical and mental health. These sessions are a chance for some of our team to share their personal experiences – something which goes a long way towards normalising mental health and reaching out to anyone who might be undergoing similar issues.

Setting up support

At times, we all have the need for more than just a conversation in the office or a session reminding us to check-in on our own wellbeing. To make sure we’ve got this covered for our team we signed up with Health Assured, a service which offers 24/7 support to all our staff whenever they might need it. This partnership has removed obstacles for Aiimi employees to access the right support from professionally trained counsellors, quickly and anonymously.

We encourage those who need to seek support from Health Assured to do so in a way that suits them, be it during working hours or in their own time, so that they can benefit from all that the service has to offer. Amazingly, a number of people have already been open about how they’ve used this service and how it is benefiting them on both a personal and professional level!

Working well, beyond the workplace

A lot of organisations talk about the importance of a “work-life balance”, but do they really do whatever they can to ensure that this is upheld for their employees? The balance between work and life is constantly changing for all of us – one week you might be working away at an event, the next you might want to work from home so that you can attend your child’s school sports day. That’s why we choose to promote remote and flexible working based on individual circumstances rather than a “one size fits all” approach.

A big part of this is making sure that Aiimi people have the right work-life balance to ensure that their annual leave really is just that! We don’t want people working while they are on leave; there is a whole team of us to ensure that everything is covered so that we can all have some much-needed downtime. Our resident Copywriter-extraordinaire, Jenny Stark, recently left an amazing Out of Office email response that, frankly, everyone should live by!

Living the Aiimi values

As a company, we are keen to ensure that success not only gets recognised but is rewarded, which is why we have quarterly “I am Aiimi” awards. This award is more than just an ‘Employee of the Month’ award – it is designed to recognise individuals who have in some way embodied one of our four Aiimi values: Be Caring, Be Brave, Be Expert, and Have Integrity. We know that our team don’t need incentives to pursue these values, but providing recognition and sharing positive experiences is a great boost – and it helps to keep these values at the forefront of our minds.

More regularly, we give monthly ‘Shout Outs’ at our team social meetings. This is a great way for people in the business to find out about all the great things our colleagues are doing that we perhaps wouldn’t hear about otherwise…and let’s face it, who doesn’t love being told that they are doing a brilliant job!

Give and you’ll get more back

Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) is a big part of wellbeing at Aiimi. We have a huge level of involvement from across the company – from our COO Tom O’Farrell running the London Marathon this year for our partner charity, UK Youth, to our technical team delivering coding sessions with the recovery centre at St Mungo’s. Events like this keep both our bodies and minds active and Aiimi fully supports us all in getting involved and putting forward exciting ideas to take our CSR commitments to the next level.

“Whenever our co-workers take time out to teach young people coding, or help people experiencing homelessness, they come back inspired and energised. I’ve seen time and again that when we give something we always seem to get more back ourselves”.

By looking out for others’ wellbeing as well as your own, you’ll often find that you reap the benefits yourself!

Onwards and upwards

As you can see, there’s plenty that Aiimi is currently doing to ensure that wellbeing is not just a buzzword thrown around the office, but a genuine way of life for all our employees. Still, there is always more to do!

We love to think outside the box and find innovative ways to support our wellbeing at work and beyond. If you know of a great initiative that you would like to share, tell us! You can tweet us or tag us on Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram…